"I don't want to get in a bar fight. People are always gettin' in bar fights. It's such a damn cliché. You hear about it all the time and you see it in the motion pictures, people are gettin' hit in the head with beer bottles, and furniture, and—" (breaks bottle over man's head)

Examples

A rival pirate crew attack Luffy and Zoro while they're in a bar in Mock Town; however, the other pirate crew was so pathetically weak Luffy and Zoro don't bother fighting back. They look pretty torn up in the end, but they're ultimately unhurt.

In the fourth movie, Luffy, Zoro, and the bounty hunter Shuraiya get into a large fight with the crew of General Gasparde.

No sooner did Negi of Mahou Sensei Negima! enter a lawless border town's bar at the start of the the Magical World Story Arc did he and Kotaro find themselves participating in a bar brawl with the rowdier patrons. Bar brawls happen pretty often in that bar, so the bartender told them not to worry about the damages since he'll get the guys they beat up to pay for it, though Negi and crew still stayed around to help repair the place.

As soon as Lucy steps into the eponymous guild in Fairy Tail, a bar brawl breaks out. Apparently this happens all the time, particularly whenever the most boisterous of mages are in the guild at the same time.

When the guild gets rebuilt from the ground up after having been destroyed by a rival guild, Natsu hates how different it all feels... until it has its first brawl, at which point he's much happier about the redesign.

There is one in episode 17 of Sonic X, "The Aventures of Knuckles and Hawk", but it's very short because... well, Knuckles is the one fighting so the guys fighting him never stood a chance. This extremely short fight occurs when Knuckles starts looking for his human friend Hawk.

In the Tales of Vesperia prequel movie, First Strike, Yuri and Flynn end up in a tavern full of Guild members boasting about how they took an old man's money and didn't finish their job. Needless to say, Yuri doesn't like that and soon the two of them lay the smackdown.

Referenced in Tokyo Ghoul. Amon briefly mentions an incident involving a drunk Shinohara starting one of these, beating up 20 coworkers in the process. It is apparently famous within the CCG, and the reason people don't let him drink anymore.

In Justice League United #5, four Leaguers -Green Arrow, Supergirl, Stargirl and Animal Man- barge in Block-C20, a derelict space station turned into a bar for bounty hunters who take exception to the presence of several heroes. Chaos ensues.

In the comic, most pianists and dancers can only play right with "atmosphere" — that is, massive fights during their performances.

The bartender removing the giant mirror just before the fight, only for it to get shattered just after, is a Running Gag.

In one case, the people are at the bar following a funeral and a brawl breaks out for whatever reason. At the end, Luke raises his glass to the dead man (and joined by everyone), and two participants are seen limping away, commenting on how well that fight turned out, shame the dead guy couldn't have been in it.

Averted at another time with a town composed exclusively of men, who no longer have the heart to start brawling anymore as there's no woman to fight over.

Charles Xavier would occasionally Flash Back to his past friendship with Magneto, before the two became bitter enemies. One of the most memorable of these involved the two starting a Bar Brawl with a bunch of drunken sailors because Charles didn't like seeing them pick on a cripple for "being different" — and winning without using their mutant powers. Well, mostly without their powers...

At one point in Preacher, Jesse, sensing that Cassidy is in a bad mood (his girlfriend had just died of an overdose), deliberately picks a fight in a bar to burn off the bad vibes. (He still had limits, however, and stopped Cassidy from eating his opponents.)

During the "Gang War" arc, we get to see a Bad-Guy Bar filled with supervillains. The storyline revolves around a power vaccum in the supervillain underworld so a brawl was bound to happen... twice. Both times were pretty violent.

The eponymous hero also got involved in one in the first issue of the ongoing series (the character first appeared in a miniseries) while drowning his sorrows.

Le Scorpion: Armando starts one between the warrior monks and the Swiss Guard in In the Name of the Father so he and his allies can slip out of the bar without being seen by the monks.

Used for Black Comedy in the fifth album of the original Adele Blanc-Sec stories. News that the First World War has ended reaches Paris, and the French in a local bar begins to cheer and sing national hymns. Unfortunately, a band of American soldiers are present, insulting the French by reminding them that theyactually won the war on behalf of the French. After a brief argument involving The American Revolution and Lafayette, the discussion turns into a brawl.

Subverted in Lanfeust: Lanfeust and Hebus, looking to blow off some steam, try to start one. Unfortunately, the rest of the bar stands up, eagerly anticipating the fight... but they all claim they're on the troll's side. Including the guy who got thrown across the room by said troll.

Early on in the Firefly/Doctor Who fanfic The Man with No Name, the Doctor wears his usual attire (a brown coat) into an Alliance-friendly bar. Much to his confusion, he is quickly punched out a window.

In the Fallout 3 fan fiction Trouble, Butch gets into huge fights every night with the two former slavers and the ex-raider living in Rivet City, along with off duty guards. Though for the most part they all admit they have fun beating the crap out of each other.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Supergirl crossover The Vampire of Steel, a brawl breaks out when Buffy and Kara go to "Willy's Place" as looking for Zol-Am and find Zol-Am himself. Since the subsequent fight involved two Kryptonians and a Slayer, there was no much bar left when it was over.

The floorboards beneath their feet exploded upward, as a tall and muscular form in green, red, and gold raiment shot up like a human geyser from whatever lay below. It stopped just before it reached the ceiling, descended quickly to the floor, and looked at both women with an expression that baled together hatred, satisfaction, hunger, lust, and some emotions neither one of them were comfortable appraising. The denizens of Willy’s cleared away from his landing place, making for the door or hugging the walls.

At the beginning of the Second Movement, having just arrived in the Baravadan city of Ta'akan, the four unknowingly wander into a skahs pub, where they have barroom brawls roughly once a night. It's just about all the skahs have to do these days. Afterward, the employees sell healing potions to the crowd, and all the broken stuff magically disappears.

Months later, when the four leave Ta'akan for good, they have dinner at the pub and watch the nightly brawl as a form of closure.

In the Ghostbusters fan film Return of the Ghostbusters, Neil and Pavel get into one of these. The call they make to Ed later asking him to post bail implies that this wasn't the first time.

The beginning of the Door Stopper sized Firefly fic Forward starts with Mal and Jayne getting into a bar brawl, with Simon and Kaylee providing commentary. Apparently, it started because of Jayne's Nice Hat.

Earth and Sky: One breaks out in chapter 31 in the Appleloosa saloon when Applejack — confronting Baron Redtail over his challenging Soarin' to a duel — kicks the Baron's Battle Butler into the crowd of Pegalathon racers harassing the Flim-Flam brothers over their cheating. One thing leads to another, and an all out fight breaks out among everyone in the bar. Highlights include Soarin' finally fighting his rival Shootin' Star (and kicking his flank), and Applejack and Soarin' agreeing to get married in the middle of all this.

Hefty, Tuffy, and Duncan McSmurf get into one with the Wartmongers in the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story "Empath The Wartmonger".

Two bar brawls occur right next to each other in The Pirate Pegasus, with Korsan and his crew fighting against a bounty hunter and then the Mane 6.

In "Past Continuous" Eleya remarks that the Bajoran Militia imposed a curfew after the Klingons half-destroyed the best pub in Hathon.

Forum of Thrones: Leonard gets into one with Temari, over the latter's sister nonetheless.

Another brawl breaks out between John and Torrence Bernile, when the former (correctly) interpreted the actions of the latter as trying to break into one of the guest rooms.

In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, Casey Snagem, a former trainer-turned-novelist, apparently got himself into several of these during his days as a Pokémon trainer. He mentions to have gotten into five only in Sinnoh, and three of them involved Reggie (Paul's older brother) of all people.

In Tangled, one of these nearly breaks out when the thugs at the Snuggly Duckling try to collect the bounty on Flynn Rider's head. But after a stern talking-to from Rapunzel, it somehow turns into a Crowd Song.

Tortuga, as it is portrayed in Pirates, seems to be a bar brawl the size of a city.

In Thor, Thor and Erik Selvig get into a bar brawl, after Selvig unwisely tried to outdrink Thor. A stealth moment of awesome when you realise Thor hasn't got any injuries, and is carting Selvig around like he weighs nothing at all.

Thor: We drank, we fought, he made his ancestors proud! Drunk!Selvig: I still don't think you're the God of Thunder... But you should be!

In the climactic fight in Top Secret!, the hero and villain fall into a lake and continue the fight underwater, which suddenly becomes a western-style bar brawl in an underwater bar. In East-Germany.

While Ted reminisciens about the night he met Elaine in a seedy bar in Airplane!, one is shown going on between two card-playing Girl Scouts.

There is a great martial art bar brawl in Project A with Sailors vs. Cops, starring Jackie Chan.

In a bit of a meta-subversion, in the Director Commentary for Shanghai Noon, the director talked about how Jackie Chan had never heard of a barroom brawl and assumed that he would be fighting everyone.

In Romper Stomper, the skinhead gang led by Russell Crowe's character gets into a bar brawl when they discover that a Vietnamese family has just bought their local pub. One brother escapes to call reinforcements, bringing the city's entire population of Vietnamese factory workers down on the gang's bald heads. The fight spills into the streets and across half the city as the gang literally runs for their lives.

In the beginning of Star Trek, when Kirk was flirting unsuccessfully with Uhura, a few other cadets didn't like that and punched Kirk, starting the fight.

Dates at least as far back as 1926 and Harry Langdon vehicle The Strong Man. The crowd in the Bad-Guy Bar where Langdon's character is performing gets unruly, Langdon gets into a fight, and a massive brawl ensues. It ends with the saloon being literally destroyed.

Batman: The Movie. Going on in Ye Olde Benbow Taverne when Catwoman (dressed in her Miss Kitka disguise) walks in.

River starts one in Serenity, more-or-less completely out of the blue, by kicking a random patron in the head after being activated. She ends up fighting basically the entire bar, and wins.

Our Man Flint. Flint starts one with 008 (Triple-O-Eight) so he can talk with him without anyone realizing that they're allies.

The pool hall fight in the first Rush Hour movie. Jackie Chan's character, Inspector Lee, greets the African-American bartender with the words "Wassup, my nigga?" having seen Detective Carter (played by Chris Tucker), who is friends with the bartender and patrons, do the same (to be fair, though, before entering the building, Carter did advise Lee to "follow my lead, and do what I do"). He doesn't realize that because he is a stranger ''and'' Asian (rather than black), he does not have N-Word Privileges. The bartender and two of the (black) patrons accost him, and nearly all the other patrons join in the fight when they witness the ensuing scuffle. Needless to say, he easily kicks all their asses.

Subverted in An Officer and a Gentleman. Despite the obvious tensions, the brawl doesn't happen until everyone is outside, and it ends after one well-timed roundhouse kick.

The Boondock Saints has the McManus brothers getting into one of these against two Russian mob dudes who have come to close down their favorite bar. The Russians get their asses kicked and the brothers even set the ass of one of them on fire. This supremely pisses them off, and they retaliate by busting down the brothers' door, cuffing Connor to a toilet and leading Murphy off to be executed, which sets up Connor's first Moment of Awesome.

The Boom Town which is the setting for the Western spoof Support Your Local Sheriff has these breaking out pretty much anywhere, until the hero becomes sheriff and puts an end to it.

Brannigan (1975). John Wayne gets into a fight when he tries to interrogate someone in an English pub. The crook tries to fight him, leading to a brawl in which an innocent bystander keeps getting punched in the face every time he tries to walk in the door, then the poor man gets arrested by responding police. "I was only here for the beer!"

The main characters witness one in Race with the Devil. One of the characters even lampshades it, saying it's the "first one of the night".

Universal Soldier has Van Damme scuffling with some local toughs - "I just want to eat."

Nasa's boyfriend takes her to an "anarchist" bar in 1932 MelodramaCall Her Savage. The boyfriend is recognized as the son of a capitalist exploiter mining magnate. Cue brawl.

In Hell Fighters, the manager of an Australian roughneck crew tells Chance Buckman, the man running the firefighting team, that they drink as they see fit. Chance starts a fight by cold-cocking the man, saying, "Just one thing. There's one boss!"

In That Man from Rio Adrian pursues bad guys, who've taken his girlfriend in tow, to a bar in a floating village full of roughnecks on the Amazon. An attempt to do him in erupts into a full-on brawl everyone seems glad to get in on.

At least two of the multiple versions of Alaskan Western The Spoilers culminate in an epic, and classic, one-on-one example. Balconies are fallen over, valuable pots are smashed, chairs and bottles are used as weapons, men are thrown over the bar, tables are flipped, and every sheet of glass in the place is smashed. It finishes with the hero and villain going out the window and finishing the fight in the mud. The 1942 version features John Wayne and Randolph Scott losing their shirts, while the 1955 version has showgirls who just keep on dancing as the furniture flies, and a leading lady who slides down the bannisters in order to keep watching her man.

In the Veronica Mars movie, one erupts after Veronica's sex tape is played at the high school reunion as a cruel prank. Logan goes into a blind rage, Piz jumps in to help him when he gets in over his head, Dick jumps in because it looks like great fun, Weevil reluctantly gets involved (initially it seems he's torn between wanting to help and not wanting to look bad in front of his wife), and Wallace joins in only after shutting off the video. Veronica ends this nonsense by activating the fire sprinklers.

Eddie Felton sets one up in a pool hall in The Color of Money to teach Vincent a lesson about hustling. He stops it soon after it starts and quickly drags Vincent out of there.

One erputs in a The Swamp Fox ep when the brigade sneaks off for a drink and the Tory bar owner alerts the Redcoats.

In Crackers, Joey and Albert get involved in one near the start of the film.

In The Devil's Brigade, the Americans and Canadians - who up to now have been *ahem* at loggerheads - team up against a group of loggers. In a twist, the Canadian hand-to-hand combat instructor congratulates one of his students then is immediately cold-cocked by one of the loggers. One of the bar girls takes out one of the soldiers with a bottle. And in a blink-and-you-will-miss-it, we see what a Scotsman wears under his kilt. Briefs.

In The Legend of Frenchie King, the Sarrazin brothers realize that the Leroi sisters are cheating at poker and denounce them. The Lerois answer this by acting insulted, raising a ruckus and flipping a table, starting a fight that somehow involves everyone else in the bar. Maria comes in firing off her gun and stops them.

Deadpool starts one early in his movie by sending one guy a specific drink. He wanted to see if the guy would die so he'd collect the money he'd bet on him in the dead pool.

She: Holly and Job get into one near the beginning of the film, which prevents them from noticing that Leo has been lured off to meet She.

The Bus (Norwegian, 1963). Lars, the local mook, is set up by his girlfriend against eight farm boys at the local meeting place (only known as "the local" among rural Norwegians at the time). Lars single-handedly "cleans out" the place (another rural expression) until the main character intervenes and saves his hide.

I Shot Jesse James: John Kelley gets into one when he stops two con men from swindling Soapy out of his prospecting claims. With a little help from Robert Ford, he manages to beat the two men back and throw them out of the hotel.

North to Alaska is basically bookended by a pair of epic barfights, which both trash the same bar, months apart, no less.

Best of the Best: An innocent little slow dance with a female patron is interrupted when her boyfriend unleashes a "Hey, You!" Haymaker (and nails her when his intended target ducks).

In Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, most of the scenes in The Mended Drum ("the most reputable disreputable tavern" in Ankh-Morpork) involve a huge fight breaking out. By the time of the Going Postal, it's become something similar to a professional sport, complete with a standardized points system. Postal even features a scene with some bar brawlers discussing strategy. Such a history in fact, that its first appearance — named as the Broken Drum — has a bar fight started over a chest full of gold coins, shortly before it is burnt to the ground and most of the city with it.

Twice in X-Wing: Iron Fist. Both times, they are set up beforehand — in the first, the Wraiths are being set up to be carted off by fake cops, in the second, they are setting up to kidnap Imperial pilots. The fact that they consider "We start a Bar Brawl" to be a reasonable step in a covert operation tells you almost everything you need to know about the Wraiths.

In Richard K. Morgan's book Black Man (a.k.a. Thirteen), the protagonist starts a few lethal barfights with lowlifes in order to satisfy his genetically mandated bloodlust.

In Dark of the Moon, the second book of P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath series, a particularly vicious bar brawl takes place at a tavern in Peshtar, a bandit-ridden mountain town.

In The Solitary Cyclist, Sherlock Holmes gets in a bar brawl. He comes out with a bruise. His opponent had to be carried in a cart.

In the Forgotten Realms novel Passage to Dawn, one bar that Drizzt and Cattie-Brie frequented had brawls so frequently that people kept time by them (a man mentioned he'd arrived at the bar during "the fight before last").

In one story from the Starfleet Corps of Engineers series, Mor glasch Tev (the Tellarite second officer) accidentally starts a bar brawl on Rhaax, due to mistaking hostility for Tellarite-esque argumentative politeness. Under his people's Blue and Orange Morality, insults and blustering argument are a form of polite discourse. He misjudged in this case, though.

In Myth-Inc in Action, Chumley goes to wait outside while his sister Tananda takes on an entire bar, amusing himself by cataloguing the various damage she was causing by sound alone.

In Mass Effect: Retribution, it's made clear that the xenophobic Cerberus assassin, Kai Leng, is a huge badass when we learn why he was kicked out of the Alliance marines in the first place. He had a Bar Brawl with a KROGAN and killed it with nothing more than a knife. Keep in mind that krogan have redundant vital organs, meaning that you essentially have to kill them twice, and are strong enough to break a human's neck by simply backhanding them.

One of the men on trial with Fisk in the Knight and Rogue Series was arrested for getting into a bar brawl, though it's implied that he and the man he was fighting do so frequently enough that people only care anymore if they happen to destroy furniture.

Also happens, of all places, in a BIONICLE book, Raid on Vulcanus. After the first attempt at the titular raid has been thwarted, Jerk Ass Strakk starts a fight with the chef at Vulcanus' inn, prompting the temperamental Kiina to step in between. Strakk then gets into a full-blown brawl with her, wrecking the place.

In The Drawing of the Dark (a work whose title refers to dark beer), Duffy is hired as a bouncer at the Zimmermann Inn, in 16th century Vienna. Despite the fact that he's supposed to prevent brawls, he ends up, after a few weeks, taking bets on them instead.

In the early Honor Harrington novels, Horace Harkness had a long-standing practice of starting these whenever he was in a bar that contained Manticoran Marines (The Marines actually considered this a compliment, as it meant that he thought they were worthy opponents). It stopped after he married one.

Subverted in Cross And Poppy by GMW Wemyss, with a brawl in a Michelin-starred restaurant in which three League One footballers unwisely take on, among others, a Retired Badass duke (who's dining with the Chief Constable and the Police and Crime Commissioner) and the local rector who had been a schools boxing champion.

Justified in The Wandering Inn web serial, where the main character lives in an inn. Frying pans, chairs, and kitchen knives all become good impromptu weapons when dealing with monster attacks or thieves.

Q (possibly, it's up for interpretation) showed Jean-Luc Picard that a bar brawl was a pivotal moment in the life of the young captain (even though it nearly killed him, he had to get a artificial heart after he was stabbed). Essentially, had Picard been the sort of man who would have avoided the fight, he would have never made captain; his career stalling as a junior officer who never takes risks, and is never noticed.

On Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, O'Brien, Bashir, and Worf have an off-screen argument about organized labor that somehow escalated into a bar brawl, landing all three in a jail cell. Sisko was not pleased.

Another DS9 brawl occurs as the natural result of having Klingons, Romulans, and alcohol in the same place.

During the occupied DS9 arc, the station resistance is able to engineer a brawl between Cardassian troops and a number of Jem'Hadar after Rom steals a copy of a Cardassian contingency plan to poison the Jem'Hardar in the event they run out of ketracel-white (Jem'Hadar in withdrawal tend to go on indiscriminate killing rampages) and arranges for the information to fall into Jem'Hadar hands. The fight—between the genetically engineered Super Soldiers and DS9's go-to analogue for the Nazis—immediately turns deadly.

In Star Trek: Voyager "Survival Instinct", Harry Kim and Tom Paris specifically look for a bar on the alien space station the ship is docked at. They (and some other crew members) wind up getting into an off-screen bar fight with some other aliens over some alien game. Janeway reprimands them and confines them to their quarters...but stops to make sure they won the fight.

The A-Team was rather fond of them, as it allowed an impressive and plausible fight scene without killing anyone. (As opposed to the impressive implausible shootouts without killing anyone.)

The episode "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" had one of these between rogue Time Agents Capt. Jack Harkness and Capt. John Hart. Incidentally, it was combined with Kiss-Kiss-Slap, and thus was preceded by a snogfest between the two of them.

To prove to the viewers that something is wrong in Smallville, the first major clue that red Kryptonite makes Clark bad is his instigation of a (one-sided, as he's a young Superman) bar brawl. According to the director's commentary, the network loved this and used the clip of Clark asking if anyone else wanted a try for many promos to come.

Stargate SG-1: SG-1 starts one in "Upgrades" after another patron insulted Daniel. Two (much bigger) guys stand up for each member (sans Teal'c), and Jack even lampshades it as cliché. They are under the influence of Super Strength-granting Applied Phlebotinum armbands, courtesy of the Tok'ra. Asskicking ensues.

Lie to Me: Subverted in "The Canary's Song." Lightman smashed a bottle on the bar and threatened the miners with it, but an actual fight didn't ensue.

There are four great Bar Brawls in the first three seasons of Babylon 5:

In the first season, one is started by a guy trying to hit on a drunk Ivanova, resulting Ivanova beating up everyone in the bar. Garibaldi refused to arrest her.

Garibaldi: I want to live.

The second season was a dispute over a spilled drink in a bar containing at least a company of Marines (and one pilot), resulting in a massive free for all. It only ended with the bellowing of the Sergeant Major.

The third season has two:

Marcus investigates a kidnapping by walking into a seedy bar and state that if he isn't provided with information about the kidnapping within ten minutes, he will be the only man in the bar still standing. Ten minutes later, he looks around and declares "Bugger! Now I have to wait for one of them to wake up."

In "Point of No Return"all Hell breaks loose on the zokalow when the first battle of the Earth Civil War is partially broadcast over the ISN newsfeed, a Bar Brawl on steroids.

In the pilot episode of Houston Knights, two police partners who Do Not Get Along get into a knock-down-drag-out fight in the middle of a crowded bar. This naturally sparks a bar brawl, but before it can really achieve its full potential, the bar's owner fires a shotgun in the air and announces that this is a private fight between those two and everyone else needs to settle down and stay out of it.

Season three episode four of Merlin has Merlin and Arthur meeting Gwaine when he comes to their aid in a bar fight, accompanied by cheery folk music.

Tales of the Gold Monkey. Happens often in the Monkey Bar, with a Running Gag of the owner Bon Chance Louie doing up the bill for damages as the fight takes place. Louie is also the local magistrate, so is in a position to make sure everyone pays up.

The pilot sees the Odd Friendship of Sara, Snart, and Mick going to a bar while the team are in the 70s and starting one of these after Sara fights off some thug's unwanted advances. They all seem to enjoy themselves immensely.

Mick: I LOVE THE SEVENTIES!

In "The Magnificent Eight", the team hides out in the Old West. When an outlaw accuses Stein of cheating at cards and tries to shoot him, only for Snart to shoot him first, his gang attacks the team, staring a brawl even bigger than the one from the pilot. Hilariously, Mick is shown to be missing out, due to being passed out drunk.

In "The Justice Society of America", the team goes undercover in a Nazi bar in occupied Paris. But then Ray can't bring himself to do the "Heil Hitler" salute, and punches out the Nazi trying to make himself do it, starting a big fight. However, it gets cut short when the JSA arrives and knocks all the Nazis out.

In "Outlaw Country", the team is once again in the Old West, and are trying to get close to outlaw Quentin Turnbull in order to shut down his operation. For once, they decide to intentionally start a bar brawl, only for Mick to screw up the plan by becoming fast friends with Turnbull. But Jonah Hex, who has a personal grudge with Turnbull, charges in, leading to a shootout and fight.

Something similar happens in season 3 episode "Zari"; in another Bad Future version of Star City, the team is trying to protect the titular character from a water-controlling assassin. First they track her down in a bar then, when the assassin shows up, Sara has Mick start a brawl as a distraction.

Really, it's become a Running Gag at this point that any episode featuring the Legends going to a bar will devolve into a fight at some point.

The Swamp Fox: Marion's men get into one with the Redcoats after they sneak off when they're supposed to be on watch, and someone brings in the Redcoats after them.

CSI: A bar brawl erupts in a country and western bar in "Bull"; an episode that employs a lot of tropes associated with The Western.

Jessica Jones: Luke gets into one with his fling's husband (which Jessica ends up joining), which serves to demonstrate both his mental toughness and his physical invincibility.

Yoshiki Hayashi of X Japan was a subversion of this, being that he was, as well as the drummer, The Piano Player... and often, if it wasn't hide or Taiji from his band starting shit, it was him. There's no word if he usually secured his piano first...

When Dave Mustaine was still a member of Metallica a brawl broke out between Metallica and Armored Saint. Some of the Saint members jumped Lars Ulrich and Mustaine charged across the room and kicked one of them, unfortunately reality ensued and Mustaine, who was a trained kickboxer, broke Saint lead guitarist Philip Sandoval's ankle. Mustaine felt bad about this as he didn't want to seriously hurt Sandoval, he just wanted to protect his bandmate and would later visit Sandoval to apologise and give him an ESP guitar as way to get closure on the incident.

The Dropkick Murphys song "Barroom Hero" is about a man who has a chronic habit of getting into bar brawls, with dangerous consequences.

Happened in the finals of ChickFight VIII after Wesna threw MsChif into a bar.

The Orpheum has an open bar, which means Florida Underground Wrestling, EVOLVE, Full Impact Pro and SHINE are prone to these breaking out if a wrestlers get too far away from the ring.

Puppet Shows

In The Muppet Movie's El Sleezo Cafe, Kermit and Fozzie become the victims of one after their dance routine fails to pacify the unruly customers. While Kermit gets flung at the ceiling fan (and subsequently into the piano), Fozzie is tossed into the bartender- and manages to end the brawl by declaring "Drinks on the house!" The mob beats feet to the roof for the free drinks.

Tabletop Games

These are pretty standard for the setting in Shadowrun. A stock joke has the difference between high-class bars and low-class bars being whether the bouncer takes away your guns or hands out loaners.

The Wizards of the Coast card game, Inn Fighting, is based entirely around this trope.

Introductory Adventure (a.k.a. Adventure 0) "The Imperial Fringe". The adventure is started off by a brawl in a tavern, after which the PCs meet their patron, Administrator Galadden.

"The Traveller Adventure". While in a bar on the planet Zila, the PCs are mixed up in a fight between crews from Oberlinded and Akerut ships. This leads to a meeting with Marc hault-Oberlindes, owner of Oberlindes Lines.

The Deep 7 game Arrowflight has a pub known as the "Drink and Fight", where patrons are expected to have a drink and then have a good fight. The current champion is the tavern's owner, an ex-mercenary.

Fantasy Games Unlimited's Flashing Blades supplement An Ambassador's Tales. While on a mission in England the PCs can get into a brawl with British musketeers while drinking beer in the common room of an inn.

Having codified the idea of You All Meet in an Inn, whenever the party in Dungeons & Dragons enters a tavern, chances are that a brawl will follow. Whether or not said brawl is instigated by the Player Characters is an open question. The fifth edition of the game even introduces a "Tavern Brawler" feat that improves a character's ability to wield improvised weapons like chairs or mugs... perfect for when the situation in the tavern turns ugly.

Theater

In Guys and Dolls, Sky and Sarah help start a fight in a dive in Havana but get out of there just as it is turning into a real brawl.

Video Games

The first two Lego Star Wars games have a Diner and a Cantina as their hub worlds. In both cases attacking anyone will cause everyone to fight each other. In the second game every random bar patron has a blaster and they will use it on you and each other.

The Borderlands 2 DLC Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage features a bar brawl as part of the main quest line, and can be repeated indefinitely for extra rewards.

In Dragon Quest VIII, fourth party member Angelo is introduced with a bar brawl caused by his cheating at cards.

One of the levels in The Warriors has your gang fighting The Hurricanes inside a bar, where you can beat the crap out of them with chairs, bottles, cue sticks, or even the billiard balls themselves! One of the flashback levels also has a brawl in a bar.

In the third game, one of these can happen offscreen if the Inquisitor is human. If the player opts to publicly denounce some distant relatives who are trying to take advantage of his/her position, one cousin gets so incensed that he picks a fight with an Inquisition soldier in a tavern. This descended into a full brawl that ended when an angry cook took a rolling pin to the cousin's head.

Guybrush starts one inadvertently, due to his poxed hand, in Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1 by being let into Club 41. We don't see what happened, only hear the sounds, but they won't let him back afterwards, so it must have been messy. However, it is later played straight in Chapter 4, though the Bar Brawl is more of a Bar Swordfight.

A lot of world Player Versus Player ends up in an Inn. Inns usually are bars... when 4 Blood Elves walk into an Alliance Tavern where there's 3 Alliance Players and a Death Knoob... it's on.

Starting a Bar Brawl is part of a quest line in the Blackrock Depths dungeon.

The Cataclysm expansion of World of Warcraft features the Speedbarge Bar in Thousand Needles. Goblins and Gnomes in the same room, all just waiting to be set off by your character throwing an easily bought bottle... and it's actually a quest for you to do so. The quest givers even encourage doing it again.

Alternatively, you can also just walk in and FUS RO DAH!!! the entire room, and that starts a more traditional free for all.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception opens with Nate and Sully starting a brawl in an old-fashioned English pub — specifically, they take on The Dragon and his thugs in the parlour, but it spills over into the rest of the pub and the English patrons are more than keen to give the troublemaking Yanks a good thumping. It's done to teach the player Uncharted 3's new hand-to-hand combat mechanic, and setting this tutorial in a pub gives the player an opportunity to hit bad guys in the head with bottles, pool cues and fridge doors.

TRON 2.0, like the TRON: Legacy example above, has one of these. Jet goes to the Progress bar to help Ma3a assimilate some code that could protect her. And in the middle of the process, in barges Thorne and a horde of virus-inflected Z-Lots, forcing Jet into fighting them off long enough to protect Ma3a. Unfortunately, the code's horribly bugged, and the corrupted Ma3a forces Jet to run for his life with both Thorne and Ma3a on his tail.

One Dynamic Event in Guild Wars 2 has you trying to prevent one of these between several Charr of different legions. Picking the correct dialogue options with them causes them to back off, while the wrong ones force you to beat some sense into them.

The second half of Streets of Rage 2's first stage is set in a bar with all manners of tables that can be destroyed for items. You confront the bartender in an alleyway next to the bar.

In Chapter 3 of Terra Battle, the heroes come across a tavern and attempt to recruit some new fighters to their cause. They end up fighting in order to prove their worth.

Mount & Blade has the Belligerent Drunk, who accosts you in the bar and can start a bar swordfight. You can choose to talk him down, threaten him, or intimidate him—with varying degrees of success, depending on your fame, disposition in the town, and general meanness. Since he does draw a sword on you, no one is too upset if you respond in kind and end up running him through.

The Star Wars mod deserves credit for having what is possibly the most entertaining bar brawl sequence in a video game. Unlike standard Mount and Blade bars, the cantinas in the Star Wars mod are chock-full of NPCs, often upwards of two dozen, and boast great variety in clientele, such as Rodians, Sand People, Mandalorians, and other unlikely faces on all drinking next to each other in what is implied to be a very tenuous sense of neutrality. It's possible to trigger a bar fight in such a way that everyone ends up fighting everyone else in a giant free for all, including the bartender, and then to win by slashing or blasting your way to the top of a heap of bodies before making your exit.

Dwarf Fortress introduced expanded emotions and taverns at the same time, and it was only a matter of hours before they started brawling in their taverns every now and then. Not too common, but they get huge, often expanding to involve most of your fortress and whatever guests you may have, and while deaths are uncommon you can expect broken bones, knockouts and plenty of lost teeth as everyone beats the shit out of each other with their cups. Especially hilarious if you gave them heavy iron goblets beforehand.

In Overlord I, starting one of these is required to score 100% corruption.

In the Citadel DLC of Mass Effect 3, a group of drunks decide to harass Commander Shepard and Ashley Williams in a bar. Both of them are Spectres (the most elite law enforcers in the entire galaxy). This does not end well for the drunks.

Mass Effect: Andromeda: Ryder and Drack can get into one on Kadara. Given the combination of lots of alcohol and extremely angry outlaws, it's a wonder it didn't happen sooner, frankly.

Ryder: If you wanna start this, I'm going to finish it. Outlaw: You and What Army?Ryder: I don't need an army, I got a krogan!

Web Comics

In Twice Blessed, Cade goes to ask Tessa of the Emerald Flame at the Blue Bulls Tavern if she'd be interested in his Rod of Wonder. She sets him on fire.

In Beyond the Canopy, Glenn falls through a roof and disrupts a bar room card game, then finds himself fighting two of the players. One of them has a grudge against Glenn; the other was "winning" the game and resents Glenn's disruption.

In Nodwick, bar brawls are a regular occurrence at the Fang and Flagon. In an earlier arc, invading elves and dwarves mistake the layers of destruction for a weapons-testing site. The place even has a last call for fights. (That thing about the last man standing paying for the damages? Here it's a rule enforced by the management.)

The episode "Comfort and Joy", wherein the audience (and her rather unfortunate boyfriend, Green Lantern) learn that Hawkgirl likes starting these for fun. Apparently, on Thanagar, this is the tradtional method of celebration. Followed by a scene of both Hawkgirl and Green Lantern sleeping off their drinks, lying against the large alien who they started out fighting. It's oddly heartwarming.

Hawk and Dove's debut on Justice League Unlimited involves this trope in a sports bar. The trophy case gets demolished before the fight actually starts.

In one episode of The Simpsons, there is a Bar Brawl and the Jukebox is used as a weapon.

Patron One: Let's fight! Patron Two: Them's fight'n words.

Marge of all people instigates one at Moe's in Strong Arms of the Ma. Marge took on every patron of Moe's and a group of sailors, and decisively came out on top; even making the Navy personnel retreat sheepishly.

One was started as a distraction so that Iroh and Zuko could slip out of a bar when some bounty hunters come after them.

Another was shown briefly in the multi-part finale when the Gaang is looking for June.

Used regularly on Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers; if the Rangers head to a tavern to meet an informant, it's even money that one of these is going to start. Turned Up to 11 in "Boomtown" where the fight starts in the bar, and soon turns into a town-encompassing free-for-all.

In Wakfu's season 2 episode 10, a bar brawl erupts in Brâkmar when the protagonists inquire about their friend Kriss Krass, as he's Persona Non Grata in town. Idiot Hero Sadlygrove is having the most fun out of it, but then the bar's owner shows up with enforcers, angrily stating that they should have made a reservation first before starting a brawl.

The first episode of Bounty Hamster has a PA system announcing a "spontaneous bar-room brawl in three minutes."

Tex Avery'sDroopy cartoon '"The Shooting Of Dan McGoo'', based on a Robert W Service poem, has an establishing shot in the Malamute Saloon, panning across a full-scale riot.

Murphy starts a bar fight at the bar inside Sealab, The Idiot, because he was so drunk that he forgot he gave his golfing hat to a fellow patron.

A fight breaks out at a relocated Idiot between the two Debbies and Yumi over Quinn that results in them tearing each other's clothes off. Everyone else watches (except Stormy who got blinded) cause Girl-on-Girl Is Hot. Evidently the girls agreed.

Debbie Dupree: Me and Debbie and Yumi got so turned on that we all started making out. Everyone was watching and totally cheering us on.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy